A Thousand Years
by TeagieDog
Summary: Based off of Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years" Damon waited over one hundred years for Katherine, for Elena. Yet, he still has to wait for her, even though he found her. Watching your love, who you've waited and searched so long for, in the arms of another, your own brother, can torture you. Until you snap...


DISCLAIMER: I do not claim either Vampire Diaries, it's characters, or Christina Perri's song. I simply borrowed some of the lyrics to help lend to the feel of the story. The plot and writing itself though, is mine.

I literally cried while writing this.

* * *

_Heart beats fast, colors and promises. How to be brave? How can I love when I'm afraid to fall? But watching you stand alone, all of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow._

_One step closer_

_The tall, handsome, dark haired young man watched from afar as his younger brother held the beautiful blonde haired maiden close, dancing. He watched them glide across the ballroom to the musicians' music. He saw how he stared at her, so gently, so in love. He saw how she stared at him, so gently, so in love. He clenched his fistsat his sides, holding back the flood of emotions inside of him._

Damon Salvador watched as Stefan, his younger brother, danced in the middle of the high school gym floor with Elena, his girlfriend. An all too familiar scene. They stared at each other with the same looks he had seen on those exact faces oh, so long ago. He clenched his fists at his sides, exactly as he had the last time. But, this time, he did not try to hold back his tears. In his dark, secluded corner he wept, silently. He wept over his lost, and re-lost, love. He suddenly caught the words of the song playing over the school's speaker system…

_I have died everyday waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid I have loved you. For a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more…_

His tears continued to flow as he stared off at the only couple he could see, mouth agape. If there was a more perfect song for his feelings now, he didn't know it.

Turning without another look, he left the building unnoticed. He wiped furiously at his eyes with his coat sleeve. But, his ice blue eyes refused to cooperate. The tears continued to flow. The lyrics of that song continued to flow through his mind…

_Time stands still_. _Beauty in all she is_._ I will be brave_._ I will not let anything take away_. _What's standing in front of me_?_ Every breath_, e_very hour has come to this._

He stopped walking in the middle of the forest. The cold, wet wind whipped his hair into his face, stinging it. He welcomed the pain, anything to distract from the pain in his heart. Without a thought to his expensive clothes, he fell to his knees in the mud, as he broke down in tears. His body wracked with sobs.

He had loved Katherine, but Stefan had taken her from him. She loved them both, but he took her. Not that it mattered; Damon wouldn't have 'I love you both'. But it still pained him when he thought she had died- killed herself to stop him and his brother's quarrels. And it had hurt when they had to kill her, her and her madness.

And Elena, so much like her. She was so beautiful, so graceful. But, yet, she was so different at the same time, so much stronger, so much more independent. He fell in love all over again.

_I have died everyday waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid I have loved you. For a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more…_

He really had waited- what seemed like- a thousand years. Over one hundred years, away from this town so full of bad memories. Away from this town that, out of it, grew a copy of the woman he loved so dearly. A copy of the woman who died, and would die again, in the arms of another.

_And all along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me. I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more._

_One step closer._

_One step closer…_

He slammed his fist into the mud, splashing it around him, in melancholy frustration. His sobs rang out clearly in the forest around him again. He withdrew the lapis lazuli ring from his finger. Staring at it with tear filled eyes, he clenched it, and drew his hand back to throw it away. Throw it farther than he could reach once in a sun weakened state. He didn't want to live in this world anymore. Not for another one hundred years. He wouldn't wait for another Katherine, another Elena.

Gently, someone grabbed his hand, just before he threw. He looked up into eyes that matched the jewel in his ring exactly, right down to the shade. They glistened with tears, like his own…

Without a word, she took his hand, unfurled it from around his ring, and slipped it back on his finger. Damon watched as if he were in another world entirely. Elena pulled him to his feet. She looked up at him. Without a word, she grasped his hands in her own. They didn't need words to communicate.

_"I have died everyday waiting for you."_

_"Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you."_

_"For a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more. And all along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me. I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more…"_

With those last words, those repeated lyrics, he kneeled his head, pressing his lips to her in a kiss that had waited centuries too long to happen.


End file.
